Jessa (Duggar) Seewald has expanded her family. The former Counting On star, 30, announced on Saturday that she and her husband Ben Seewald have welcomed their fifth child together. In a photo shared on Jessa’s Instagram, the mom of five could be seen holding the baby in her arms while sitting up in a hospital bed. She looked down happily at her newborn as she rested while still in a hospital gown.

“Baby is here and we couldn’t be more grateful!,” she captioned the post, adding that the baby’s “full birth story” was available to watch on their YouTube channel.

Jessa noted that the birth wasn’t an easy one as she had been in labor for 12 hours before being moved to a room and getting an epidural, which she noted “worked great on one side” and was “sort of spotty on the other side.” She said they thought “things were moving along just fine,” but the doctor told her that the baby was still “pretty high” and not “in the most ideal position” as the baby was “posterior.”

She then decided to “shut off the epidural” and called her midwife, who came to the hospital and helped her “get into a bunch of different laboring positions to help rotate the baby.” The reality star shared several photos of the midwife helping her move in various directions on the bed, which “happened for about 3 or 4 hours.”

“And when I got to the point where I could tell the baby was descending, the contractions felt more intense, I was like, ‘I need the epidural turned back on, please,'” she said in the video. “We turned the epidural back on, [and] one leg was working great [while] the other side, just, I could feel everything.”

She said the doctors had to readminister the epidural, and at around 3 a.m., after 21 hours in labor, she finally gave birth to her child. The emotional moment was captured on video as Jessa broke down as the baby was placed into her arms. Her husband could be seen wiping away some of her tears before placing a kiss on her forehead.

The couple’s friends and family in the delivery room asked whether it was a boy or girl, and it was confirmed to be a boy. “The sweetest moment [was] when they raised the baby up and put him on me,” Jessa gushed in the video. “Just holding him there, I think there were just so many emotions in that moment [and] so many things that you’re processing. It’s been a year since we lost our last baby and just a flood of emotions.”

The couple announced in September that they were expecting their fifth child on social media, after Jessa tragically suffered a miscarriage in 2022.

“After a heartbreaking loss last year, we are so grateful God has blessed us with a rainbow baby,” Jessa wrote on her Instagram Story at the time. An accompanying video showed a positive pregnancy test sitting on a bathroom counter.

“Just this past week we found out some wonderful news that our rainbow baby is on the way and we could not be more excited,” the reality star said at the time. Jessa and Ben are also parents to daughters Ivy, 4, and Fern, 2, and sons Henry, 6, and Spurgeon, 9.

In other news – Comedian Neel Nanda tragically dies at 32

Comedian Neel Nanda has died aged 32, it has been reported. Comedy clubs like the The Comedy Chateau and The Port Comedy Club reported on his death, but shared no other details. Neel’s TV credits and work includes his time on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Comedy Central’s Adam Devine’s House Party.

The 32-year-old is survived by his father, his mother, and sister. Tributes poured in for the stand-up comic as several comedy clubs announced the news of his passing. Read More